D'Alessandro: No pity needed for Carmelo Anthony, simply a decision

John Mabanglo/EPACarmelo Anthony was the focus of the media's attention Friday during All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles.

This is always the fun part of the NBA season, the weekend in which fanged and drooling reporters strap on skirts and pom-poms, cartoonishly inept owners jet in from distant shores to perform their Billy Mays routines, and the star of our show reminds us every time he opens his mouth that his ignorance is matched only by his narcissism.

But our favorite part of Friday’s proceedings was when Carmelo Anthony, wearing the fixed smile that is an inspiration to android engineers worldwide, suggested that his life has been a living hell these past few months.

The money line: “I need some sleep, I don’t need that much stress on me,” he said. “The last month, month and a half, I wouldn’t say it’s stressful” — actually, you just did, young fella — “but there are a lot of things I think about, just waking up in the morning knowing this is what I have to deal with every day, that’s the toughest part.”

Amazing fortitude, wouldn’t you say?

It’s as if the guy has survived a mining disaster.

Our second favorite part — basically a reprise from every stop on the Melo Tour — was his response after someone solicited his list of things he takes into consideration as he ponders a potential future in New Jersey or New York.

“That’s something I have to think about,” he said, thoughtfully. “Deeply.”

Right. It keeps him up nights, we hear.

Then there was the TV guy they cut to a few minutes later, who observed, “You really gotta give Carmelo great credit for how he’s handling this entire thing, because he sat there and answered the same questions over and over again.”

Oh, yes. Kudos to Carmelo.

And apologies for making his life so stressful.

But as we close the curtain on the most entertaining diva act since last summer, we’d like to make it up to Carmelo as he awaits the procession of billionaires lined up to grovel like the sycophantic boot-lickers that they truly are.

Second, if he wants to come to Jersey — and for now, it appears that he really doesn’t — he will spend two months banging his head against a Rock, and then he’s looking at a hurry-up-and-wait season in 2011-12.

Yes, their top eight (Melo, Chauncey Billups, Brook Lopez, Sasha Vujacic, Jordan Farmar, Travis Outlaw, Anthony Morrow, Kris Humphries) would be good enough for 45-37 and a playoff berth next year. But they’re also one injury away from being 35-47, which would put Melo out of the playoffs for a second straight season — a fate akin to career death.

Then comes the summer of ’12, and he had better hope there are enough free-agent point guards to go around, because the top prizes — Chris Paul and Deron Williams — would pick Amar’e Stoudemire and Manhattan over Melo and Brooklyn any day of the week.

If Melo wants Manhattan, he’ll take Manhattan.

The one wild card: By the end of the weekend, the Nuggets just might conclude that the Knicks’ package is better, now that Raymond Felton is part of it. Whether the Knicks’ resulting core (Amar’e, Billups, Melo, Landry Fields, Toney Douglas, Ronny Turiaf, and maybe Danilo Gallinari) appeals to Melo is another story, but he can be confident that Paul or Williams would mangle each other for the chance to play at the Garden.

Anyway, if Melo isn’t clear on all of this by now, he’s either lying or clueless. Or busy in deep thought.

We promised ourselves we wouldn’t do this, but there we go again. The human brain-drain that agent Leon Rose fired into our collective skulls is nobody’s fault, unless you want to blame a media that can’t keep its eye on the ball (Ooh! Something shiny!) anymore.

This, after all, is the only thing that matters in the NBA, the only thing that will keep fans’ attention, just as it has been for more than a decade now. Most of us don’t really like the game at all, and we certainly don’t like to think as deeply as Melo. So we’d rather ponder a roster shuffle (that “D-Wade wants out of Miami?!?!” spot stopped being funny after the first 5,000 viewings) than actually watch four entire quarters, because we have the collective attention span of a flea.

Compare that with the NFL, a league that for 14 straight days somehow compels you to ruminate on the how the Steelers’ patchwork offensive line will react to the Packers’ defensive schemes until your head explodes.

The bright side is we’re in the fourth quarter of this, and can soon get back to basketball.

But before we turn the page on this riveting drama, let’s remember what really matters: “I take my hat off to myself for dealing with all this stuff,” Melo said.

Yes, it was an ordeal just lifting his arm to accomplish this. We were honored to witness it.